05/29/2012

Police Abuse Pregnant Women - multiple examples!

When I heard about three police offers who wound up using a taser on a pregnant woman in Seattle, my first thought was that the story was some kind of a joke. Cops tasering a pregnant woman? In some sort of attempt to subdue her? For real?! You gotta be kidding me.

Apparently these three officers became enraged when they pulled Malaika Brooks over for a moving violation while driving her 11-year-old son to school, and she refused to sign the ticket they gave her because she didn’t want to admit being guilty when she didn’t feel she’d done anything wrong. But in the state of Washington, it’s a crime to refuse to sign a ticket — so they proceeded to arrest her. When Malaika then refused to get out of her car because she was in her last trimester of pregnancy, the cops must have felt really threatened — because that’s when they tased her on her leg, arm, and neck.

And that’s where this case gets even crazier. Not only was she convicted for not signing the ticket, but after suing the officers because of pain and scars the taser left behind — the circuit court ruled in their favor! But apparently getting away with using a stun gun on a preggo wasn’t enough for these guys, because now they’ve appealed their case to the Supreme Court in the hopes of getting a final ruling that they were not in the wrong by tasing Brooks.

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Channel 2 Action News has learned a DeKalb County police officer is under criminal investigation for allegedly kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach, then charging her with obstruction of a police officer.

Records show the department never investigated the incident and five supervising officers signed off on the officer's actions.

Dozier was nearly nine months pregnant and helping to calm down her brother who was arguing with police. They used a Taser on him, and she cried out.

That's when Officer Jerad Wheeler used what he described in his report as "a front push-kick to the abdomen, as he was taught to do at the academy."